Field
The present invention generally relates to ray tracing based rendering two-dimension representations from three-dimensional scenes, and in one particular aspect, to tracing of secondary rays in ray tracing for rendering of images from 3-D scenes.
Description of Related Art
Rendering photo-realistic images with ray tracing is known to produce photo-realistic images, including realistic shadow and lighting effects, because ray tracing can model the physical behavior of light interacting with elements of a scene. Ray tracing usually involves obtaining a scene description composed of geometric primitives, such as triangles, that describe surfaces of structures in the scene, and modeling how light interacts with primitives in the scene by tracing light rays, starting from a virtual camera, through numerous potential interactions with scene objects, until terminating either at light sources, or exiting the scene without intersecting a light source. Additionally, when a surface is found to have been intersected by a ray, additional rays may be used to determine whether that intersected surface is in shadow from potential sources of light energy, and for other purposes, such as for characterizing reflections or refractions.